Government invites bids for Delhi-Varanasi high-speed rail corridor

NEW DELHI: The government has begun work on its plans for a second high-speed rail corridor in the country, between Delhi and the prime minister’s constituency of Varanasi, by inviting bids on Thursday for the preparation of designs for the proposed stations and bridges along the 865-km long corridor. Once ready, a bullet train could cover the Delhi-Varanasi route in four-and-a-half hours.
Work is already on at the 508-km long Ahmedabad-Mumbai high-speed rail corridor to run a bullet train.

The National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited, a joint venture of the Government of India and participating state governments, invited bids on Thursday to start the process of preparation of the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the Delhi-Varanasi high-speed rail corridor.

As per the bid document reviewed by ET, this will involve the preparation of drawings of all the crossing bridges expected in the corridor –– over rivers, other rail routes, and highways –– and drawings of the proposed stations and maintenance depots, within the next three months.

This high-speed rail corridor could have stations at Noida, Agra, Kanpur, and Lucknow. Railways had, in 2019, started the Vande Bharat train between Delhi and Varanasi which takes eight hours.

Railways is planning six new high-speed rail corridors, including the Delhi-Varanasi corridor, to meet growing passenger demand and optimise the high speed rail connectivity between major cities, commercial and economic activity centres. Only about 15 countries in the world have such high speed railway systems.

A document of the National High Speed Rail Corporation says the project “apart from being a technological marvel, would afford many quantifiable benefits like saving travel time, vehicle operation cost, reduction in pollution, job creation, reduction in accidents and enhanced safety, imported fuel substitution, and reduction in pollutants.”

The organisation says the project will boost infrastructure and help in the growth of the economy. The other five corridors are planned between Delhi-Ahmedabad (886 km), Delhi-Amritsar (459 km), Mumbai-Nashik-Nagpur (753 km), Mumbai-Pune-Hyderabad (711 km) and Chennai-Bengaluru-Mysore (435 km).